Website promises to help bush fire victims – but only if enough if it gets enough Facebook likes

An Australian online shopping site has apologised for using the bush fire crisis to try to build the number of followers for its Facebook page.

Gold Coast-based Sellitonline.com.au promised to donate generators to help those in Tasmania without power – if there were enough likes for its page.

It posted a message saying: “What we need you do do is get everyone of your friends to join sellitonline Facebook page and the more people we get will determine how many generators we donate.”

Source: Screengrab via Condescending Corporate Brand Page on Facebook

The post quickly drew criticism with one poster saying “Don’t manipulate social media for your own benefit”. Another added more bluntly: “Fuck off with your opportunistic marketing trying to take advantage of other people’s tragedy.”

The post has since been removed from the brand’s Facebook page.

A spokesman for Sellitonline told Mumbrella: “We apologise if anyone was offended. We will be making a donation anyway.”

A spokesman for Sellitonline told Mumbrella: “We are, like, sorry if people thought we were being opportunistic, cause, we totally don’t think we were. And, like, it’s not like we aren’t going to donate to the poor people who live in Tasmania”

Subscribe to Condescending Corporate Brand Page on Facebook and take the time to scroll through the many hundreds of other examples like yours on their page.

You made a mistake, you will need to learn from it.

Oh, and do not give your facebook reins to somebody who has never been client facing before. Whoever posted that for you will either learn and “get it”. Or is unable to learn and should not run your social media.

Telstra did this after the Black Saturday bushfires, they were just more subtle about it. For every new signup (to a 24 month plan), they pledged $30 to the rural fire service.

The ad featured two fireys in bright yellow uniform, drinking from water bottles on charred earth. This was at the time of the YouTube clip of the shell shocked koala who was given water from a (similar) bottle after the fires.

While not as blunt as sellitonline’s approach, it nevertheless fed on the same disaster & suffering.